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Funny, I've never thought of All the Things as being in Ab. The first chord is in Ab, then the 2nd chord is in Eb. Then back the Ab then, to Db. Then C. Then Cm. Then Ab. Then Eb. Then Ab, then G...etc.

I lost count of the keys

That's why for soloing this tune is really helpful for development. You go through several really popular keys which are used in so many tunes.

Very good Rosa! Yes, expand it to 1 5 9 on the LH. On the RH, remember that you're doing 3 7 3 and then reversing to 7 3 7. There are times when you don't do so. Examine to make sure that you are sounding the 7 and 3 on the RH at all times unless the melody messes you up. You did this amazingly fast

This tune is an example of one where the melody is based on thirds so this kind of split between the LH and RH works well.

In general, you will find that different tunes seem to lay differently on the hands and usually depends on where the melody is.

There are times when you'll want to mix LH 1/5/7 RH 9 3 with this version of playing (LH 1/5/9 RH 3 7 3).

Misty also works well with these two handed voicings, I find.

On the other hand there are tunes that really don't sound good with these types of voicings and work better with bass note + rootless chords. Examples are On Green Dolphin Street, Stella by Starlight. These require more dense harmonies IMO.

When soloing, doing an occasional bass note + rootless chord is a common element that must be mastered.

Thanks Woody, Barb and Jazzwee for your encouragment. I thought it would take me longer to master this but even tho' so many key changes, but the pattern repeats, so not too bad.

Jazzwee, just a short Q: For RH, is it that for ALL the melody notes -- get the 3 & 7 s in there? (In AL, we only did it to the first downbeat chord and for other melody tones we played only single note.)

i've been doing the Bill Evans arp exercise - trying to build up some speed. I'm up to 90 bpm with my RH. When I add LH rootless to it, I'm at 55 bpm.

Plus, I decided it's time to actually memorize the AL chord progression. I've been relying on the lead sheet too much.

Plus, I'm playing the melody with jazzwee and his combo. I didn't like my last recording where the melody was up an octave. So, I took the melody down an octave, which made me learn a few new rootless positions.

That's it from me - You can say I am back to basics and it's a comfortable place for me to be right now.

Who's next?

_________________________
A Sudnow Method Fanatic"Color tones, can't live without them"

Thanks for the update Barb. Your practice raises the question: Is everyone pretty good at doing fast multi-octave arpeggios (up and down)? This should be put into the practice routine in addition to scales since as you can see it is the backbone of the music vocabular (jazz and classical). The only difference is that one should 'swing' the arpeggios (accent upbeats).

Working on the arp exercise too. Having much more trouble than I expected. Getting the arps to fall under the fingers across chord changes is tough! I find I really have to precompose my pattern and practice it several times until it comes out (at speed). Maybe I should be slowing things down too. I did take it down to around 108. I'll add multi-octave to the workout too.

I'm also working on the melody phrasing change that JW suggested (which wasn't too hard to incorporate). As well as rootless voicings. I still don't have those totally memorized.

Rosa, this requires a little bit of careful checking here but it looks to me like some of the notes are incorrect (on the 3/7/3).

It's hard to check because I really have to slow it down. The clue is that on the ii Chord as in Bbm7, to Eb7 the only note that should move (other than the melody) should be the 7th of Bbm7 (which is Ab). Ab moves down a half step to the third of Eb7, which is G. Since ATTTYA is mostly ii-V's, there will be many cases where only one note should move.

As in this example, it went quite fast but it seems like the Db on Bbm7 moved to Eb? That would mean it went to the root instead of staying in place in being the 7th of the new chord.

Let me explain the theory once again so it's clear.

In a ii-V sequence, the 7 of ii resolves to the 3rd of V by moving down a half step. This is ALWAYS true. So it is easy to think of fingering of this since only the middle finger holding the 7 will move all others stay put.

This particular technique leads to good voice leading which is what I'm trying to promote here. There is less motion on the hands while achieving a full sound. In this voicing scheme, most of the movement is the Root-Fifth of the LH, the RH moves at half the number of times. Even going to the root is moving the 7th down again.

Now just to clarify, the duplicate 3rd or 7th on top is really the melody. It just so happens that the melody is mostly the 3rd as shown here but that can move. What is constant is the left two notes (3 7, 7 3).

You also did it nicely at the end where you skipped the rules since the ending line doesn't allow regular fingering of 3 7 3. So it is good that you're using common sense here to follow these guidelines as long as it makes sense.

The 9ths looked good to me on the LH. You can cross check because the thumbs of the LH and RH should be either a half step or a whole step apart. They should be pretty close at all times.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense. Since it is hard to follow what you're playing on MIDI, you can give me specific questions on notes if you can document it.

Hi Rosa, we're getting close here. What I'm seeing is that the melody is low. You're pulling out the third of the chord and just working with the 7th and the melody.

I think you should do this first without the melody. When I play this with melody, my fingers don't disappear from the chord. It stays put and sustains.

If you're playing this without the melody, make sure to double the 3rd or 7th, 3 7 3 to 7 3 7 with the pinky being the last note and the thumb being the first note. This is an octave stretch so I hope it's comfortable.

There will be cases (when melody is added) where to play the pinky requires a stretch of greater than an octave but I just want to make sure that you are on a solid harmonic base on the chords below it, where all the chord tones are sounding evenly (that you're not pulling up early, which I saw a lot of).

I want your fingers to get used to the span of 3 7 3. The pattern of the hand is very consistent with this. The left hand is pretty fixed and I think that's ok in your playing.

STEP 2As a next step, I want you to add only the melody note on the 1st beat of the chord. So this is what the pinky will play. In most cases, this will not alter 3 7 3 as you know. But it will on occasion.

Your hands need to remember this constant shape, with the 2 thumbs close by and the stretch being almost constant.

One more thing I noticed: Part of your problem may be that you play the LH too high. On some of the chord changes you make, I would go down, not up.

In some cases the 9 will go past your RH thumb so the two hands will overlap. This is also ok, just as long as your hands maintain less movement and more control over the voicing.

Unfortunately this is a lesson that's easily explained when seen. On the internet, our ability to crosscheck what you've done is limited to a "day" wait. But it's better than nothing right?

Hi Jazzwee, to be able to crosscheck within one day is VERY GOOD already. For a live teacher, I need to wait a WEEK but I don't have one at the moment. So we are faster

This time, I did RH only 3 7 3 & 7 3 7 with LH just hitting one note of the base chord. In this way you can see my RH easier -- moving mostly the inner finger half steps and at times moving the outer fingers one step.

That looks good. Now the LH was not playing 1 5 9 and I know you will add that but in order for the LH to line up nicely with the RH, make sure to move the root down appropriately.

At times it is ok for a little overlap between the hands, especially when you do the V chords (because the 9 will be over the 7 played by the RH thumb). This is OK.

Before you add the melody to the finished product here, just make sure you're paying attention to the orchestration of all the voices underneath the melody. This means, as I said before, that the pinky may have to stretch past an octave.

I hope you can see here the different ways of playing solo piano. This same tune works nicely with the LH 1/5/7 shell voicings as well and is good to do when soloing. The reason it works here is that the 3rds are in the melody so they get a lot of attention anyway, thus the important notes are always sounded (root, 3 and 7). In this alternate approach, you don't shift from 1/7 to 1/3. You always do 1/7 or 1/5/7 -- again the reason is that the 3rd is already being played on the RH.

There are many ways to play a tune and sometimes you will have to experiment which voicing style works the best.

What you've learned here, LH 1/5/9, RH 3 7 3, can also be used for comping and in that case you actually do keep playing the double 3 in 3 7 3 or double 7 in 7 3 7 and it will work.

One more thing you should put in your arsenal to practice is to play these same notes but arpeggiate them. This is a ballad solo piano style.

Thanks Jazzwee for the guidance. The reason why my LH clashes with the RH is because I am playing on a 66 keyboard so my LH can't get lower than 2 octaves below the middle C.

I understand what you are showing me about the 1/7 and 1/3 working well with AL and now for ATTTYA since the 3rd is taken care of in the melody, then LH 1 5 7 or 1 7 or 1 5 9 work well with this song. I love the 9ths in there.

Next, I will try to do that ballad solo you are saying. Appregiate my LH and also keep those RH voicings intact along with the melody line.

On AL make sure you start working on rootless voicings and in solo piano style, it is done by hitting the root, pedal then hit the rootless chord. The effect of it is a lush sound full of jazz sounding chords and then your right hand can arpeggiate like you do here.

In other words I want to make sure you can incorporate full jazz voicings, with more alterations than you've done so far on ATTTYA. This is where you get the full jazz effect. The rootless is starting point for this.

Originally posted by Woody-Woodruff: Jazzwee,Still working on my Evans arps. Not as easy as I had thought it would be.

I heard Connball Adderley's AL. The piano comp sounds almost Legato with the base behind it? Is that how I should be playing the left hand? [/b]

I just listened to it Woody, and the comping is very light in the background. There is no fixed comping method. If you listen closely, the pianist will change the pattern of comping regularly. Sometimes whole notes, sometimes stacatto notes. The timing will be varied and usually made to fill holes. Comping others is not something I've discussed much here. What we're doing is comping the RH. But you can learn a lot from Hank Jones. You can see that comping does not have to be regular. Sometimes it is absent. It provides color and interest. Also the voicings change for variety.